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Serena Williams Feeling Confident Ahead of Wimbledon

By Ben Shpigel June 23, 2012 3:00 pmJune 23, 2012 3:00 pm

Joel Ryan/Associated PressSerena Williams at the Pre-Wimbledon Party at Kensington Roof Gardens in west London.

WIMBLEDON, England — The turnaround from the red clay of Roland Garros to the pristine lawns of the All England Club is perhaps the most challenging in tennis, akin to plunging into a cold tub right after a soothing dip in the whirlpool — a shock to the system without the chattering teeth. Patience may be a virtue at the French Open, which rewards consistent baseliners, but it is a vice at Wimbledon, where, Maria Sharapova said, anything longer than a five-ball rally means “you’re probably doing something wrong.”

Sharapova, after winning in Paris on June 9 to complete a career Grand Slam, had two weeks to prepare for the vagaries of grass-court tennis. It could have been worse. She could have had four weeks, as did Serena Williams, who endured an epic collapse, losing her initial match at the French Open.

After winning the first set against Virginie Razzano and leading by 5-1 in the second-set tiebreaker, Williams fell in the opening round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her sparkling career. The tumble deprived her of the chance to duplicate her French-Wimbledon double of 2002, which no woman has accomplished since.

Still, as it always does, opportunity abounds here, where she has won 4 of her 13 Grand Slam singles titles. The surface suits her aggressive style and amplifies her booming serve, but Williams nevertheless struggled to explain her success. In response to two separate questions about it, she said “I don’t know” three times and “I just don’t know” once.

“I get confident here,” said Williams, whose last Wimbledon singles title came in 2010. “I have fun.”

In interviews, Williams can be expansive and engaging or chippy and curt, but during her pretournament news conference Saturday, she came across as mellow but intense, as if she were on a low flame. At times, she twirled her hair around her index finger. She addressed subjects ranging from the Miami Heat’s triumph in the N.B.A. finals (“I love those guys”) to whether she would follow if her older sister Venus, troubled by the incurable autoimmune disease Sjogren’s syndrome, decided to quit.

“I have no intention of stopping, and I actually don’t think she does, either,” Williams said.

That was a nicer alternative to Williams’s putting her hands on her hips and blurting, “So there.” A streak of defiance coursed through Williams’s words Saturday, though she seemed wholly uninterested in reliving or recounting that loss to Razzano. It was, after all, one match, and on clay, her worst surface. She said that she would be “extremely motivated” even had she won in Paris.

“You can name anybody, including Sharapova, and you put them head to head, Serena is the clear favorite,” the ESPN analyst Cliff Drysdale said on a recent conference call. “I still think she’s the best player in the business.”

The field of challengers is deep, starting with Sharapova, who dazzled at the French Open. Sharapova, like Williams, eschewed playing a warm-up tournament and arrived here about 10 days ago, capitalizing on a spate of decent weather to log some integral practice time outdoors.

“As much as you want to celebrate,” Sharapova said, “you come here, and it’s like a whole new ballgame.”

Williams made the unusual decision to remain in France for a while — often, after losing at Roland Garros, she and her sister would return to the United States — where she trained with Patrick Mouratoglou, who owns a tennis academy there. Their focus was confidential, apparently. She acknowledged that she worked with him but nothing more, other than to emphasize that her father, Richard, is her coach.

“We’re just taking everything day by day, you know,” Williams said. “I’m not a fast mover or anything.”

Except, perhaps, through the Wimbledon draw. It seems to shape up favorably for the sixth-seeded Williams, starting with a first-round matchup with Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, whom she pummeled in the second round of the Australian Open in January. Lurking in her quarter are the French Open runner-up, Sara Errani, and the reigning champion here, Petra Kvitova. Alas, Razzano, her tormentor in Paris and a wild-card entrant here, is on the opposite of the draw.

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Journalists from The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune (along with a few dedicated fans) are following the Grand Slam tournaments, on and off the court. They will provide updates, insights, links and analysis while setting the scene from the stands as well as the press room.

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